Explore the War

Women at War

In a people's war, women are everywhere in the story — a collection of dispatches on the factories, the services and the home front.

The War at Sea

From the convoy bridges of the North Atlantic to the engine rooms of the merchant fleet — a collection on the longest battle of the war.

Gold coin linked to Hitler tops $50 million at private auction

A 1937 coin said to have been carried by Adolf Hitler has reportedly drawn offers above $52.3 million — a claim historians and numismatists treat with considerable caution.

US supply ship sunk by U-boat

17th August 1941: As the Battle of the Atlantic intensifies, survivors describe long hours adrift in an open boat before a passing corvette finds them.

The interrogation of a captured agent

The Security Service view of a man dropped by parachute — they had his cover story on file and knew almost to the hour when he would arrive.

Welcome to a prisoner-of-war camp

16th August 1941: British troops begin to fill up a large camp already familiar to French prisoners, soon to be familiar to many more.

Armour advances across the open desert

15th August 1941: A tank crew records the choking dust, the mechanical failures and the long silences between short, violent actions in North Africa.

Escorting the convoy home

14th August 1941: From the deck of a destroyer, a young signalman watches the merchant ships he is sworn to protect fade into the North Atlantic haze.

A charter agreed at sea

14th August 1941: Aboard warships in a quiet Newfoundland bay, two leaders set their names to a short statement of war aims that reaches far beyond the war itself.

A night on the platform

13th August 1941: A year into the bombing, a Londoner describes the strange domestic life that has grown up on the platforms of the underground, far below the raids.

The briefing before the raid

12th August 1941: A bomber navigator sets down the hour that hangs heaviest — the quiet room, the map, and the long wait before the aircraft roll.

The oldest soldiers

11th August 1941: An evening drill of the Home Guard — old rifles, older men, and a seriousness that outsiders were too quick to mock.